Cohen/Mitchell/Young: 60s Canadian folk/rock/pop stars
Posted: Sat Dec 16, 2017 1:31 pm
There's a triumvirate at the top of Canada's 60s contributions to popular music. I'm speaking of Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, and Leonard Cohen. They all came to prominence within a few years of each other, and all have had long, long careers. And unlike their contemporaries, or rivals in other decades, all three have gone on making artistically relevant music their entire lives. Their careers have waned and waxed over the years without ever dying out, and without them ever turning into nostalgia acts, recycling their past glories.
This is an extraordinarily rare achievement in popular music. And Canada, a low population nation, produced three such world-class artists within a few short years. What the hell was in the water. And what changed? Because no other generation has done the same, even once, let alone thrice.
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I suppose one thing that changed was the passage of the Canadian Content (CanCon) laws, which decreed that Canadian radio stations had to play 30% domestic music. This fostered a Canadian music scene, which meant that artists could stay home and have a career. In the 60s, Canadian acts could stay home and play clubs, or record and maybe have a regional hit, but stardom, even domestically, was out of the question. To make it big, you had to go to NY or LA, and the 3 I'm taking about all did. After the passage of the cancon law in 68, it became possible to stay home and have a career. Did that prevent Canadian acts from taking the chances that might have led to Cohen/Mitchell/Young scale stardom? Maybe, but I doubt it's the entire picture.
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Did the fact that all three were on the leading edge of the baby boom mean that the changes they were going through in their lives and reflecting in their music would be tracked over the ensuing decade by the largest generation in the demographic, giving them a ready-built audience for whatever they wanted to write about? Until the millenials (the boomer's kids) every other generation has been out of phase with demography, meaning that the zeitgeist and the largest audience were out of sync. Unlike the above, every artist since has had to decide to either pander (write for the market, not for art) or write for themselves and settle for a niche market, both of which must tend to prevent a long term career that's both artistically true and commercially successful. Hmm. I've just come up with this theory as I wrote the post, but I'm finding it persuasive.
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But still, it doesn't explain why 60s Canada punched above its weight. The US produced Bob Dylan, who has done the same, but who else from that generation? Springsteen, I suppose, tho he's a touch younger. I suppose I'm being colour-blind, here. There are any number of black american musicians of that era, and since, who have careers that combine similar amounts of super-stardom, artistic relevance, and longevity. Black America, too, punches above its weight.
I wonder if the additional ingredient is outsider insight? If you're born inside mainstream US culture, unless you try hard, that's all you see. If you're born out of it, you get your own culture overlaid with US culture, which provides automatic perspective that insiders don't get.
This is an extraordinarily rare achievement in popular music. And Canada, a low population nation, produced three such world-class artists within a few short years. What the hell was in the water. And what changed? Because no other generation has done the same, even once, let alone thrice.
~~
I suppose one thing that changed was the passage of the Canadian Content (CanCon) laws, which decreed that Canadian radio stations had to play 30% domestic music. This fostered a Canadian music scene, which meant that artists could stay home and have a career. In the 60s, Canadian acts could stay home and play clubs, or record and maybe have a regional hit, but stardom, even domestically, was out of the question. To make it big, you had to go to NY or LA, and the 3 I'm taking about all did. After the passage of the cancon law in 68, it became possible to stay home and have a career. Did that prevent Canadian acts from taking the chances that might have led to Cohen/Mitchell/Young scale stardom? Maybe, but I doubt it's the entire picture.
~~
Did the fact that all three were on the leading edge of the baby boom mean that the changes they were going through in their lives and reflecting in their music would be tracked over the ensuing decade by the largest generation in the demographic, giving them a ready-built audience for whatever they wanted to write about? Until the millenials (the boomer's kids) every other generation has been out of phase with demography, meaning that the zeitgeist and the largest audience were out of sync. Unlike the above, every artist since has had to decide to either pander (write for the market, not for art) or write for themselves and settle for a niche market, both of which must tend to prevent a long term career that's both artistically true and commercially successful. Hmm. I've just come up with this theory as I wrote the post, but I'm finding it persuasive.
~~
But still, it doesn't explain why 60s Canada punched above its weight. The US produced Bob Dylan, who has done the same, but who else from that generation? Springsteen, I suppose, tho he's a touch younger. I suppose I'm being colour-blind, here. There are any number of black american musicians of that era, and since, who have careers that combine similar amounts of super-stardom, artistic relevance, and longevity. Black America, too, punches above its weight.
I wonder if the additional ingredient is outsider insight? If you're born inside mainstream US culture, unless you try hard, that's all you see. If you're born out of it, you get your own culture overlaid with US culture, which provides automatic perspective that insiders don't get.